I am thinking to work on the laptop so I can take my work with me. I draw mostly jewellery, and I am thinking to get a new laptop where I download both Rhino and V-Ray on it- the question is: what laptop (and recommend hardware) is best to buy?

If you care about looks (I’m a designer, so yeah) then check out the Dell precision line of laptops. These are the latest tech workstations, but thin and elegant. The are pricey, but are the best I have seen or used.

If you drop in on a hard floor, it is total loss. Thinkpads are built like tanks, so they can survive the fall. If you want big screen, and you do not mind the weight, get Lenovo ThinkPad P71. (Its graphics card, nVidia Quadro P3000, has 1280 CUDA processing cores.) I prefer smaller laptop and big monitor connected to the laptop. (I use Dell U2718Q monitor and I love it.)

I have damaged my neck by spending too much time in front of the laptop. Now I keep my laptop on 3M LX550 adjustable laptop riser (shown below), and my monitor on a separate 16 cm tall stand. Bottom edge of the monitor is 34 cm above my desk.

I have been making jewelry with Rhino for a very long time, and have been using V-Ray as my render engine as well. I have found that the Nvidia GeForce graphics card has been a very reliable card and is reasonably priced option. The other specifications to consider are how much RAM you require, hard drive (SSD), and size of display.

Here are some current offerings that I know would be good for modeling in Rhino with V-Ray:

Asus has been my laptop company of choice for years and I have had good luck with that brand:
Asus ROG Strix GL502VS-WS71 - GeForce 1070newegg.com

I typically purchase a spare power adapter and leave one at the office and one at home - which lightens my backpack. I have the Asus 502 (but the GeForce 1060 version) that I listed first and run 3 external monitors at the office: one HDMI, one mini displayport and the last convert USB-C to video.

Best 15.6" ThinkPad is P51. It weighs 2.67 kg. Best 15.6" Dell laptop is Precision 7520. It weighs 2.8 kg.

Their hardware is similar. The main differences between these laptops is not weight but keyboard and protective roll cage. ThinkPad has better keyboard. It is bulky because it has the roll cage and empty space between the cage and its motherboard. Some ThinkPads also have protective airbags. When the ThinkPad drops on the floor, the cage breaks and absorbs impact energy. When Dell Precision laptop drops on the floor, its motherboard breaks and absorbs impact energy.

ThinkPad Edge and a few other cheap Lenovo laptops are so thin that they have no room for the roll cage.